head to head · open source
devdocs vs atomic
devdocs has 39,462 GitHub stars, 2,643 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. atomic has 1,954 stars, 141 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. devdocs leads on adoption by 1,920% (39,462 vs 1,954 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; atomic is written in Rust under MIT. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, atomic 7%. devdocs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| devdocs | atomic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-08-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 141 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick devdocs if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick atomic if
- You want the atomic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and atomic fits your workflow better
About devdocs
DevDocs is an API documentation browser that combines multiple developer documentations into a single, clean and organized web UI with instant search, offline support, a mobile version, a dark theme and keyboard shortcuts, and it is aimed at developers who need to read and search API and reference documentation quickly.
read the full devdocs overview →
About atomic
☁️ Atomic Cloud — Atomic, hosted at your own subdomain. Try it out for free. Everything below still self hosts forever. A personal knowledge base that turns markdown notes into a semantically connected, AI augmented knowledge graph. Atomic stores knowledge as atoms — markdown notes that are automatically chunked, embedded, tagged, and linked by semantic similarity. Your atoms can be synthesized into wiki articles, explored on a spatial canvas, and queried through an agentic chat interface. Wiki synthesis — LLM generated articles with inline citations Canvas — view your knowledge on an interactive graph Semantic s…
read the full atomic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or atomic more popular?
devdocs has 39,462 GitHub stars and atomic has 1,954. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and atomic free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and atomic under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and atomic?
devdocs is written in Ruby and atomic in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, devdocs or atomic?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,462 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose atomic if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.